A proper English gentleman obsessed with propriety (and revenge); a waitress who musters up the money and courage to leave her wholly mundane husband and life; a house sitter who takes on different personalities in response to her traumatic past. These are but a few of the fascinating and expertly wrought characters we meet in The Lost Heifetz and Other Stories [February 2018], the debut short story collection from Michael Tabor. And characters are important here—in fact they’re the cornerstones of Tabor’s writing. In these twelve very different tales, Tabor guides the reader through a range of landscapes, both foreign and domestic, and crafts the stories of people and their behavior so richly that the experience often feels similar to reading a novel. Full of quirks and intrigue, the stories are sometimes humorous, occasionally bleak, and always smart, with flawed characters trying their best to carve out a life for themselves and find the balance between how people see them and how they’d like to be seen.